Rodolphe Saadé, Chairman and CEO of CMA CGM
The CMA CGM group announced on Friday the signing of a purchase promise with the Altice France group with a view to acquiring the entire capital of Altice Media.
This acquisition will be carried out jointly by CMA CGM and its family holding company Merit France, at 80% and 20% respectively, on the basis of an enterprise value of 1.55 billion euros, the group indicates in a press release.
CMA CGM, which already owns the newspaper La Tribune, thus places the continuous news channel BFMTV in its possession.
“With this acquisition project, we have the ambition to continue our long-term development in the media sector,” commented Rodolphe Saadé, Chairman and CEO of CMA CGM.
The group, based in Marseille and controlled by the founding Saadé family, is the third largest container shipping company in the world.
CMA CGM’s profits have exploded with the strong recovery in ocean freight following the COVID-19 pandemic. The group took the opportunity to invest in the media, with the acquisition last year of La Tribune, and the year before of the regional dailies La Provence and Corse Matin.
The group, which aims to establish in the long term a “Reference Media Pole” promises an “editorial project, promoting pluralism, independence and journalistic ethics”.
The operation is subject to information and consultation procedures with staff representative bodies as well as obtaining the necessary regulatory authorizations.
(Written by Kate Entringer, edited by Blandine Hénault)